TY - JOUR T1 - Response to: ‘Acquiring new <em>N-</em>glycosylation sites in variable regions of immunoglobulin genes by somatic hypermutation is a common feature of autoimmune diseases’ by Visser <em>et al</em> JF - Annals of the Rheumatic Diseases JO - Ann Rheum Dis DO - 10.1136/annrheumdis-2017-212583 SP - annrheumdis-2017-212583 AU - Rochelle D Vergroesen AU - Linda M Slot AU - Lise Hafkenscheid AU - Marvyn T Koning AU - Hans U Scherer AU - René E M Toes Y1 - 2017/11/23 UR - http://ard.bmj.com/content/early/2017/11/23/annrheumdis-2017-212583.abstract N2 - We thank Visser et al1 for their interesting correspondence to our recently published letter entitled ‘B-cell receptor sequencing of anticitrullinated protein antibody (ACPA) IgG-expressing B cells indicates a selective advantage for the introduction of N-glycosylation sites during somatic hypermutation’.2 Visser et al performed a meta-analysis on publicly available datasets to analyse acquired N-glycosylation sites in the variable region of B cell receptors (BCRs) derived from patients with different autoimmune diseases. BCR sequences of antigen-specific B cells isolated after vaccination or infection and BCR sequences of healthy donors (HD) served as comparison. The meta-analysis showed acquired N-glycosylation sites in 9% of BCR sequences derived from patients with autoimmune diseases and in 2.3% and 2.7% of sequences derived from HD and vaccine/infection-induced B cells, respectively. This enhanced frequency of acquired N-glycosylation sites (compared with controls) was observed for all autoimmune diseases, with the exception of ankylosing spondylitis (AS, 3%) … ER -